The Temple Scroll and the Halakhic Pseudepigrapha
of the
Second Temple Period

Lawrence H. Schiffman

The Temple Scroll

Based on Y. Yadin's preliminary lectures on the Temple Scroll shortly
after its recovery in 1967,1M.
Goshen-Gottstein
wrote that the scroll represented essentially a new form of literature
which he termed a halakhic pseudepigraphon.2He
assumed that the author did not intend his work as a real substitute for
the Torah. In this respect the scroll would simply have been a work based
on the canonical Torah which was intended to transmit the author's
halakhic
views.

Yadin argued against this claim by saying that this author thought he
was presenting the true law, and that there was no reason to assume that
his activity was any more bold in his literary stance than that of the
original editors of the Pentateuch.3Yadin
cited M. Smith, who had recently written that the Pentateuch itself was
in many ways pseudepigraphic in its character and who saw the
Deuteronomic
Code as a prime example of this phenomenon.4Yadin
therefore concluded that to the author and the members of the Dead Sea
sect, whom he assumed accepted the authority of this scroll, it was
"a
veritable Torah of the Lord."5To Yadin
this meant that it was of the status of a truly canonical book.6

Needless to say, no decision on these two ways of looking at the
scroll
can possibly be made without examination of the text itself, specifically
as regards the manner in which the author/redactor handled the various
sources he had before him, and the manner in which the authors (or
author/redactors)
of the various sources handled the material before them. This issue was
already examined by Yadin in his editio princeps and it is worth
recapitulating
his basic observations and the discussion which ensued.

In characterizing the nature of the scroll, which he seems to have
believed
had only one author, Yadin observed that the scroll was characterized by
several forms of editorial activity. These were: "drafting the text
in the first person with the object of establishing that it is God
Himself
who is the speaker; merging commands that concern the same subject;
unifying
duplicate commands, including those that contradict one another;
modifying
and adding to the commands in order to clarify their halakhic meaning;
appending whole new sections."7The
operative
assumption in this characterization was that the author began with the
canonical Torah in essentially the form in which we know it, with the
exception
of variations in his textual substratum,8and
based on this text he performed the various editorial steps described
above.
For our purposes in this study, the most important of his editorial
strategies
is the rewriting of the biblical commands so as to present God as
speaking
directly in the first person throughout the scroll.

Yadin took the view that the changes of grammar were intended to make
the point that God was speaking. He cited, as we mentioned, the work of
Smith who argued that this technique was used in parts of the Pentateuch
as well in order to transform previously existing codes into the declared
word of God. Essentially, our text replaced the Tetragrammaton with the
first person in many passages and phrased the supplementary sections,
composed
by the author, in the first person. But Yadin noted also that in entire
passages the Pentateuchal construction was maintained and the
Tetragrammaton
appears, God being spoken about in the third person.9

Yadin goes further with the observation that the intention of the
author
was to present the law as handed down directly by God without the
intermediacy
of Moses. This is why the author had to make the alterations in
Deuteronomy
to accent that these were God's words and not those of Moses. But he did
not have to make such alterations in the other books where God is
mentioned
in the third person, since in these passages it is clear that these are
the words of God. He sees this as pretty much a consistent approach
throughout
the scroll.10

This issue was taken up in great detail by B.A. Levine11
who, like Goshen-Gottstein, saw the scroll as a
"pseudepigraphic
composition." Levine followed the assumption that the reformulation
of biblical material in the Temple Scroll was intended to attribute the
laws in the document to God himself. He recapitulated the main arguments
of Smith's and then added the observation that whereas in Deuteronomy
Moses'
intermediation is stressed in the introductions and conclusions of the
book, the author of our scroll chose instead to follow the priestly
tradition
according to which all laws and commandments are attributed directly to
God, and Moses only "bears the message." Levine sees the scroll
as methodically eliminating the intermediacy of Moses, but he also
observes
that the scroll's author also eliminated the claims that God had
delivered
the laws of the Priestly Code to Moses. In general, Levine argues, as did
S. A. Kaufman as well,12 that the scroll's
author was simply continuing or extending the biblical process. So Levine
agreed with Yadin that the scroll presents a new Torah, not a
commentary.

In response to Levine's long review article Yadin objected, among
other
things, to Levine's position regarding the role of Moses.13
In doing so, he seems to have "nuanced" his original claims.
Here he notes those passages in which, despite the fact that Moses' name
does not appear, it is clear that he is addressed. In discussing the gate
of Levi, "the sons of your brother Aaron" (11QT 44:5) are
mentioned.
In 11QT 51:5-7 God refers to the forms of uncleanness, "which I
declare
to you (singular) on this mountain."14
Yadin concludes that Moses is indeed being addressed by God in the
scroll.
Hence, in Yadin's view the scroll has to be distanced from the apocryphal
books to which Levine had compared it-Jubilees, Enoch and other
apocryphal
works.15 Then Yadin emphasized that
"the
transposition into first person was intended to turn the whole scroll
into
a Torah that God reveals to Moses, and not words uttered by Moses
himself."
To Yadin the scroll was "for the sect a sort of second, additional
Torah delivered by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, just like the Masoretic
one." This Torah, in his view, was revealed only to the members of
the sect. It appears that he identified this scroll with the
"hidden"
law of the sect, the nistar.16 Only
in this way can we understand the title of his popular book, The Temple
Scroll, The Hidden Law of the Dead Sea Sect.17
We should note that Yadin never really considered this text as a
substitute
for the canonical Torah, no doubt because so many issues are left out
totally,
such as the prohibition of murder for example. This was a selective work
which never intended to replace the original on which it was based.

The debate over the nature of the Temple Scroll was also joined by
B.Z.
Wacholder. He also argued that this was a second Torah revealed at Sinai.
His views were essentially the same as Yadin's on this matter and he saw
the use of the first person direct address by God as advancing his
argument.
But he saw the "I-thou" syntax as borrowed from the Tabernacle
texts of the Torah where the "thou" is clearly Moses. In
Wacholder's
view the "thou" throughout the Temple Scroll is Moses.18

The notion that the Temple Scroll is fundamentally addressed to Moses,
and that he is the "thou" of the scroll would effectively
assume
that in the lost beginning of the scroll, or at its conclusion, there
appeared
mention of Moses' name in the text, much as in the case with Deuteronomy.
But we will have to hold this matter in abeyance while we clarify some
terms.

The truth is that we have seen fundamental confusion in the views we
have surveyed. Certain basic facts have been agreed to, but no clear
terms
have been used for definition. There are really several possibilities
under
discussion regarding this scroll. It could be that it is simply a case
of re-redacted Torah. This would mean that the author/redactor had simply
reorganized passages, eliminated duplications, and in some ways continued
editorial activity of the kind which is usually attributed to the
biblical
redactors. But clearly more has been done. There is no question that
Moses'
name does not appear in the preserved document. Nor is there any argument
about the attempt of the author/redactor to present the scroll as a
direct
divine revelation. What is at stake is the question of whether this
revelation
occurred through the intermediacy of Moses, which is certainly the case
in the canonical Torah, or whether Moses has been eliminated. If he has
not, then we easily understand the few references to him which appear in
the text, when the second person addressed turns out to be Moses even if
obliquely. But it is also possible that he was meant to be totally
eliminated,
and that accidentally his presence was not totally effaced from the
book.

To make matters worse, this issue seems to be tied up with other
problems.
If the scroll was the product of one author, then it would have been
possible
to say that even the slightest oblique reference to Moses shows that he
is meant to be everywhere present in the second person pronouns. But we
know that the scroll was put together from sources.19
It is perfectly possible that the work of the redactor involved
eliminating
Moses from these sources, and that he accidentally allowed the oblique
references to slip through. In such a case, we could easily maintain that
Moses' presence-not just his name-was supposed to be effaced from the
entire
document.

To clarify these possibilities we need some kind of useful
terminology.
Below we will discuss Moses pseudepigrapha. For now let us agree that a
Moses pseudepigraphon takes a position similar to that of the canonical
Deuteronomy, namely that Moses received the divine word and passed it on
to Israel. A Moses pseudepigraphon does not claim Moses as the actual
author,
any more than does the Torah, but rather as the vessel through which God
revealed Himself to Israel. A text eliminating Moses even from this
intermediate
role could be termed a divine pseudepigraphon (or, less politely, a God
pseudepigraphon) since it places God in the position of revealing Himself
directly, without even the intermediacy of Moses described in the
canonical
Pentateuch. This distinction must be fundamental to our discussion since
it defines the issue at stake here. Is the Temple Scroll a Moses
pseudepigraphon
or a divine pseudepigraphon?

2. The Book of Jubilees

To clarify the issues we will first take a look at Jubilees. This work
has often been compared to the Temple Scroll, and the two texts do indeed
have a fair number of halakhic parallels. At the beginning of the text,
the Prologue, which may or my not have been part of the original book,
states that the book was given to Moses "as the Lord spoke to Moses
on Mount Sinai" when he received the "tables of the law and the
commandments according to the voice (command) of God." Clearly the
notion is put forward that this book was received by Moses at Sinai. But
immediately afterwards, at the beginning of the book itself, the story
is a bit more complicated. In chapter 1 God commands Moses to come up to
the mountain to receive the tablets of the law "which I have
written."
There God teaches Moses the entirety of the book of Jubilees, which is
identical with the tables of the law and the commandments, and he is
commanded
to write them in a book. After God tells Moses what the future of Israel
holds, he falls on his face, and God tells him of the ultimate repentance
of Israel. Then He again tells Moses to write down the book of Jubilees
which He will give on the mountain. After all this, God then tells the
angel of the presence to write the book for Moses.20
The angel takes the tables, then in chapter 2 commands Moses to write the
book. In fact, Moses is commanded several times to write the book which
he received orally.

J. C. VanderKam has suggested that the confusion results from an error
in which the hif(il of btk was incorrectly replaced by the qal in the
relevant
passages in the Greek forerunner of the Ethiopic Jubilees. The correct
text would have spoken of the angel's dictating the book to Moses, not
of his having written it for him. VanderKam argues that the consistent
picture in this book is that Moses received the Torah from God via an
angel
who dictated it to him.21 VanderKam's
suggestion
has been proven correct by 4Q216 to Jub. 1:27 which has bytkhl,
"to
dictate."22 Here and there throughout
the book we can see that the you (or "thou" in Wacholder's
terminology)
is Moses. Moses appears again prominently in the narrative at the time
of his own birth and career (chapters 47-48). This section makes it clear
that Moses is still being directly addressed, God is still speaking to
Moses, and he is revealing this book to him at Sinai.

So here also we have the same problem: is this a Moses pseudepigraphon
or a divine pseudepigraphon? Who is the author of Jubilees claiming is
the real author, God or Moses? Here the matter is even more complex since
an angel functions as an additional intermediary, charged with dictation
to Moses. But in reality, God is seen as revealing a book to Moses, which
Moses is expected thereafter to reveal to the children of Israel. So this
is really a pseudo-God text, with Moses never portrayed as the author,
only as a recipient and as the bearer of revelation. This approach
accords
with neither of the two approaches found in the Torah. It is neither the
approach of the Priestly Code where Moses is bypassed and God speaks
directly
to the Children of Israel. Nor is it the Deuteronomic approach where
Moses
makes a speech and appears as the "author." Rather, it combines
both elements, relegating Moses to the role of divine mouthpiece, through
the agency of an angel, but maintaining him in this way as an
intermediary.

Comparing Jubilees to the Temple Scroll leads to a few conclusions.
We may say that the Temple Scroll as we have it, without the mention of
Moses's name, would make it a divine pseudepigraphon, even if Moses
appears
as a recipient of revelation, since he is never claimed as the author by
the scroll. On the other hand, we may also consider the possibility that
like Jubilees, the Temple Scroll originally had an introduction in which
Moses is described as receiving the law from God and delivering it to
Israel.
In any case, the elimination of his name and of his intermediacy from the
body of the text itself would render the entire document the revelation
of God to Israel though the agency of Moses. We still would have no
aspect
of Mosaic composition, only of divine composition.

Before passing to a comparison of a number of other so-called
pseudo-Moses
compositions, we should speak briefly about the theological ramifications
of all this. After all, both Jubilees and the Temple Scroll make the
claim,
with or without the intermediacy of Moses, that the material they contain
was revealed directly, and that it is a divine Torah. In this respect
they
are asserting a one-time revelation of God to Israel at Sinai in which
this text was revealed. This approach must be strongly contrasted with
that of both the Qumran sectarians and the Pharisaic-Rabbinic tradition.
Both the sect and the Rabbis assumed that God gave a revelation of the
written Torah-the canonical document-and then gave some form of
explanation
as well. The Pharisees speak of traditions of the fathers which the
Rabbis
later understood to be divinely given at Sinai. But the Qumran sectarians
understood the law to be divided into the hlgn and rtsn which are the
revealed, written law, and the hidden or supplementary sectarian
law.23
The rtsn was not revealed at Sinai, but rather is assumed to stem from
the inspired biblical exegesis of the sectarians--a notion which is very
different from that of the Temple Scroll. Yadin's claim that the rtsn
can include the Temple Scroll24 is therefore
impossible, because the sectarian documents representing the rtsn
involve
a totally differently theological source of authority and different
assumptions
about the nature and duration of divine revelation to humanity.

3. The Pseudo-Moses Texts

All this must be put into the framework of discussion of the so-called
pseudo-Moses texts or Moses apocrypha.25
This
material has been recently reviewed by J. Strugnell and D. Dimant in the
course of publishing various cave 4 texts. Strugnell26
has dealt with a number of texts. He has shown that 4Q376 and 1Q29,
Liturgy
of the Three Tongues of Fire, constitute the same work. He further claims
that 4Q375 is a third manuscript of the same text, a view which we find
somewhat questionable. He sees 1Q22, the Words of Moses, as a text of
similar
genre.

In arguing for his identification of these texts, and for the
possibility
that Words of Moses may belong to the same text, Strugnell makes an
extremely
important distinction between Moses' appearance in a document ex parte
sua and ex parte Domini. In Words of Moses, Moses appears on his own
behalf,
not on behalf of God. He then goes on to say that nothing in either 4Q375
or 1Q29=4Q376 "excludes such a pseudonymous author," and
maintains
that it is appropriate to suggest that they are Moses pseudepigrapha. But
here he glosses over an important consideration. Other than 1Q22, none
of these texts contains an actual address to Moses. If this is the case,
then like the Temple Scroll, as it is presently preserved, these would
not be Moses pseudepigrapha, in the Deuteronomic style, but divine
pseudepigrapha,
in the priestly style-whatever other Deuteronomic features they may or
may not contain.

Strugnell goes on to ask whether there is indeed a school of
pseudo-Moses
that created the documents of this genre in antiquity. He distinguished
these documents from those such as Jubilees where Moses serves (in his
view) as an amanuensis for an angel and the Temple Scroll where Moses (in
his view) functions as an amanuensis for God Himself. Strugnell goes on
to characterize the Mosaic pseudepigrapha as involving a
"proclamation
of law" by Moses (speaking in the first person) to Israel (in the
second person) or occasionally to Aaron, but not to Moses. God is usually
referred to in the third person singular. In this way he has defined the
Moses pseudepigrapha as following in the footsteps of Deuteronomy. Hence,
he describes these texts as "Pseudo-Deuteronomies" or
"Deutero-Deuteronomies."
Strugnell notes the presence in the Torah of texts in which the
"I"
is God and refers to the Temple Scroll which he later terms a
"divine
pseudepigraphon." He suggests that there may be ideological links
between these two types of pseudepigraphical writing. He further notes
that the Moses pseudepigrapha as he has defined them are not connected
to the Qumran community, a fact we have noted regarding the Temple Scroll
as well. He finally concludes that evidence is not sufficient to propose
an actual school of pseudo-Moses that generated the texts he has
discussed.
He speculates that the pseudo-Moses texts may have been produced by the
same school of pre-Qumranian Jerusalem Zadokite priests that produced the
Temple Scroll.

Finally, the Moses pseudepigrapha are taken up by D. Dimant in the
context
of her study of 4Q390.27 In this article, when
discussing
"Pseudo-Moses," she begins by saying that most of the fragments
of this work contain "parts of a divine discourse" which she
says is "written in the deuteronomic style typical of the divine
addresses
to Moses" and having a "close affinity with a similar divine
address to Moses in the first chapter of Jubilees."29 and
Jubilees.
She feels they should be called Moses apocrypha and that they are really
pieces of rewritten Torah resembling the Temple Scroll.30
On the other hand, she sees 2Q21, Apocryphon of Moses,31
written in a third person narrative style, to be closer to her text. We
should note that in this text God appears to speak in the first person,
so that Moses' actions and words are described in the third person.

In general, Dimant seems to see the issue of narrative style as key
in identifying a Moses pseudepigraphon. We should note that the fragments
she has published of 4Q390 never mention Moses although it is likely that
he is being addressed by God in the text.32
She emphasizes that this text involves the direct speech of God, and
argues
that it is addressed to Moses. She claims that it is modeled on the
Deuteronomic
addresses to Moses. Indeed, the task of the addressee is to receive
divine
commandments and transmit them to Israel-the role of Moses who is
lawgiver
and mediator of the divine message to Israel. In her view, one fragment,
4Q389 2 1-9, contains a direct speech of Moses himself. But she compares
this material to chapter 1 of Jubilees, claiming that there we also have
"pseudepigraphic divine speech addressed to Moses," and this
lends further support to the view that Moses is the addressee in 4Q390.
By the way, she states that the Temple Scroll was "certainly written
as a divine address to Moses," a matter about which we have seen
there
is considerable controversy. She has no problem, therefore, in terming
the Temple Scroll a Moses pseudepigraphon with halakhic rather than
apocalyptic
content.

Conclusion

The material we have surveyed here, and the analysis of the views of
the various scholars, enable us to set down some clear criteria for
distinguishing
a Moses pseudepigraphon from a divine pseudepigraphon. We may say at the
outset that the contents of the text are not at stake. Deuteronomic
content
will not place a text in the class of Moses pseudepigrapha. We must
distinguish
three classes of material:

divine pseudepigrapha in which God speaks directly to Israel with no
intermediary, on the model of the Priestly Code,

divine pseudepigrapha in which an intermediary appears, usually Moses
cast as simply an amanuensis, as in the book of Jubilees,

Moses pseudepigrapha, in which Moses appears as a full partner,
so-to-speak,
speaking for himself even while teaching the word of God, as in
Deuteronomy
and the Testament of Moses.

Either form of a divine pseudepigraphon with which we might identify
the Temple Scroll will carry with it the notion of direct divine
revelation,
on the model of the Priestly Code. Indeed, we may say that much of the
literary activity of the author/redactor was directed at converting
Deuteronomic
material to this priestly form, so as to cast the entire text as directly
revealed (even if possibly through Moses as a mouthpiece). The Temple
Scroll,
therefore, has little in common with 1Q22 Words of Moses in which Moses
is directly addressed by God and then delivers a speech in which he
instructs
the people regarding the observance of the law. 1Q29=4Q376 Apocryphon of
Mosesb? never mentions Moses at all and so resembles the Temple Scroll
to some extent. Its fragmentary state does not allow us to determine if
it is a divine pseudepigraphon, with or without the intermediacy of
Moses,
or a Moses pseudepigraphon. 4Q375 Apocryphon of Mosesa is so Deuteronomic
in content that it is reasonable to assume that it is originally a Moses
pseudepigraphon, but the preserved material never mentions his name.
Regarding
2Q21 Apocryphon of Moses (?) we may note that it resembles the Temple
Scroll
only in that God speaks in the first person, but the appearance of Moses
distinguishes it from the scroll. Finally, 4Q390 Pseudo-Moses, which also
does not mention Moses at all, may be a text related to Moses, like
Jubilees,
but is best labeled a divine pseudepigraphon with the possible
intermediacy
of Moses, not a Moses pseudepigraphon.

In essence, then, the Temple Scroll stands alone in its literary
character,
at least in its presently preserved form. It is clearly a divine halakhic
pseudepigraphon. But only a true deus ex machina would ever allow us to
know if it was delivered through the intermediacy of Moses or directly
to the people of Israel.

4 See M. Smith, "Pseudepigraphy on the Israelite
Literary Tradition," Pseudepigrapha I (Entretiens sur
l'antiquité
classique XVIII; Vandoeuvres-Genève: Fondation Hardt, 1972)
191-215 and discussion, 216-27. Cf. Also R. Polzin, Moses and the
Deuteronomist,
A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History (New York: Seabury Press,
1980) 25-72 on the alternation of the divine and Mosaic voices in
Deuteronomy.
For a totally different approach to the speeches of Moses, see M.
Weinfeld,
Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1972) 10-58. [Back to text]

17 New York: Random House, 1985. On p. 232 he
describes
the Temple Scroll as "what both author and sect believed to be the
hidden law given by God to Moses and revealed and known only to the
founder
of the sect and his followers." [Back to text]

18 B. Z. Wacholder, The Dawn of Qumran, The Sectarian
Torah and the Teacher of Righteousness (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College
Press, 1983) 1-9. [Back to text]

25 Cf. M. R. James, The Lost Apocrypha of the Old
Testament,
Their Titles and Fragments (London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge;
New York: Macmillan, 1920) 42-51 which deals with Moses
pseudepigrapha. [Back to text]

29 See J. Priest, "Testament of Moses," TheOld Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume I, Apocalyptic Literature and
Testaments
(ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983) 919-34.
Preserved
in a Latin palimpsest from the 6th century, the document dates from
somewhere
between the second century B.C.E. and the second century C.E., with
recent
opinion tending toward a date during the Maccabean Revolt. The text is
essentially a rewriting of Deuteronomy 31-34. Moses appears here as a
mediator. [Back to text]